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NFL owners may be headed for a showdown

Kai Ryssdal Nov 17, 2017
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NFL owners may be headed for a showdown

Kai Ryssdal Nov 17, 2017
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This has not been the greatest of seasons for the NFL.

There’s been the political turmoil over players taking a knee during the national anthem, the declining television audiences, and there’s now some boardroom drama in a $14 billion-a-year enterprise. Jerry Jones, the owner of the Dallas Cowboys, is in a back and forth with his fellow owners over whether to renew Commissioner Roger Goodell’s contract.

So far, Jones has tried to slow or halt the negotiations. And his interference is threatening to become a PR problem for the NFL. 

“One of the problems is that how this is played out — not necessarily publicly — but usually the owners … like to present a unified front,” said Andrew Beaton, a reporter with The Wall Street Journal. “But it becomes a problem when [Jones] is publicly attacking the league, and publicly threatening a lawsuit against the league, and the fellow owners. And that’s where [that owners have] really started to take an issue.”

Beaton has been covering this unfolding drama. He spoke to Marketplace host Kai Ryssdal about his reporting; to hear the full interview about on the NFL’s boardroom battle, click the media player above.

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